


well, i've lost it all

by arbhorwitch



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Angst, Gen, hiro shatters the frame because it represents everything he's lost, in which the author is not a reliable narrator, just pain, that's it that's the only thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:42:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbhorwitch/pseuds/arbhorwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Fuck this,” he bites out, followed by a soft pause, and then: “Tell me to put a dollar into the swear jar. I dare you. Yell at me.” </p><p>There’s nothing but empty silence. He hates himself for expecting it.</p><p>(or: hiro is a lonely, sad shell the night after his life falls apart.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	well, i've lost it all

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for angst, no happy endings, and general sadness; accidental self-harm with broken glass. 
> 
> i just wanna write happy things why does everything i touch turn sad （ ; ; ）

one will die before he gets there / and if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones / 'cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone. 

\- youth, daughter. 

//

It starts with a picture.

Two boys, six and ten, and he spares a moment to mourn the about-to-be broken frame before he pours his heartache into the bones of his hand and smashes it—loud and desperate and _angry_. The glass shatters, pieces scrambling against the hardwood, and there’s something vindictive and _glad_ that curls in the hollow of his chest.

It starts with the blood welling up on his toe when he steps forward, the itch of pain on the sole of his foot; he bends down, scoops up some of the pieces, feels them slice through the flesh of his palm and all he can taste is ash. The questions run wicked through his head: did he feel it, was he in pain, did he die knowing he was leaving behind _everyone he ever fucking loved how COULD YOU—_

Numbly, he thinks, is this what Tadashi felt like, ten years ago, alone and terrified on the family couch?

He breathes in, but the air catches in his throat, burns in his lungs like a rotting fire—too many memories are painted on the walls, littered on the floor: half-finished experiments that will never see the light of day because Hiro can’t read his brother’s handwriting, can’t decipher it, doesn’t want to _try_. There’s something terribly sad about that, these forgotten things under their beds, broken metal and the innards of the busted toaster three months ago that Tadashi won’t ever touch again.

The second picture: ten and fourteen, outside of their high school. Hiro swears under his breath and trudges over to his desk— _his_ desk—and swipes the mess off the top. In the second drawer he finds a marker, black and permanent, and the photo is glossy and cool when he scratches out their faces.

He’ll regret it in the morning, if he ever manages to sleep; there are six missed calls on his phone and two messages, but even Hiro knows that the dead can’t call from the grave they’ve made in some forgotten corner of a burned building.

“Fuck this,” he bites out, followed by a soft pause, and then: “Tell me to put a dollar into the swear jar. I dare you. _Yell at me_.”

There’s nothing but empty silence. He hates himself for expecting it.

*

When he was six years old, Tadashi walked him home after the first day of classes and wiped away the blood-snot mix dripping from his nose with a gentle smile.

Tadashi’s hand had been warm, fingers interlaced through his own as a wordless promise, and Hiro sits on his bedroom floor at two in the morning, folds his hands together and _squeezes_ until his fingers go numb with loss and his nails turn a strange shade of blue. Tadashi’s hand had been warm, like the late spring sun, and now there’s not enough left to hold.

He wonders, briefly, if they’ll find enough of him to bury; the thought lasts all of two seconds before he’s ripping the photos in half.

*

One second. _One_. His chest is a graveyard.

*

His grief is angry, bitter—he wants to hate his brother, finds that it’s easier to hate himself.

They’ll ask him tomorrow if he wants to talk, if he’s alright; they’ll offer condolences and plates of food, will tell him, _he’s not really gone_ , and he swallows the urge to scream, to beat his hands against his pillow and plead for some higher mercy, some sweet release of the ache growing harsh and sharp between his organs.

Instead, he digs his phone out of his pocket—soot streaked and ugly—and dials the familiar number.

There’s a ringing on the other side of the room, quick and familiar, and he stares numbly at the thing in his hand like it’s meant to burn his flesh, but mostly it’s—nothing.

*

One second. Three syllables.

*

He’s left with the what-ifs:

would he have graduated at the top of his class? would they have studied together, like they used to—would they have shared the same lab space? what if he had lived, what if he had seen his twenty-first birthday?

Two days ago Hiro couldn’t sleep out of misplaced euphoria, anxiety flooding his veins because he was finally _doing_ something with his life, something _amazing_ , and now he’s trapped in a cycle of could-have-beens, alone and too sad to cry, to accept the truth.

He wants to smash another picture, scratch out another memory, but he settles for burying his face into the soft material of his brother’s hat like maybe, maybe it’ll be enough to make him stay—

Funny, how life works sometimes.

(or doesn’t.)

*

He watches the sun rise through the window above his bed.

His eyes ache with exhaustion, his shoulders heavy where he’s been leaning back against his bed all night, and six a.m. is too bright, too early.

So he stands on unsteady feet, minds the glass on the floor; his fingers are stained black, the cap of the marker laying somewhere under the bed, and he makes his way to his blinds. They shut lightly, blocking out the morning light, and he shoves blunt nails into his palm and doesn’t think; his thoughts are corrupted, shutting down. He’s breaking, sort of, because there’s _nothing left._

Cass knocks on his door, and he doesn’t want to her to be alone but he needs the isolation, needs the quiet; he stumbles back to his bed, but changes his mind. Tadashi’s is closer to the door, and he can pretend, just for a bit, that he’s not making a mistake.

Tadashi’s sheets are softer. His pillow smells like aftershave and stale shampoo.

“I’m sorry,” he says into the cotton, and he’s not even sure who he’s talking to anymore.

If ghosts haunt these walls, he’ll never know.

*

Three syllables; three words. He sees the cataclysm over and over, replays it until his knuckles are indented with his front teeth and earthquakes burst in his lungs, until he tastes blood on the tip of his tongue.

(better than ash.)

_please don’t go._

Would he have stayed?

**Author's Note:**

> [♥](http://https//arbhorwitch.tumblr.com)


End file.
